One More Gift

By Christie Perkins

Ah.  The hurry and scurry of the season has passed.  You can stop feeding that hungry cash register.  It’s enormous stomach was always growling, always chomping at your wallet and chewing your stomach.

Ok.  Sit down.

I’m suggesting you buy just one more gift.

Alright, alright, now you’re growling at me.  Reee-lax!  It’s for you.  And it’s fairly cheap.  You just need a notebook.

Technically you don’t need to go shopping.  You can look around the house.  Or, even if you have an empty journal laying around (Ahem… you know who you are) you can grab that.  I actually have a use for it: a Celebrate the Day Journal.

This is a gift you’ll give yourself.  There will be no growling, chomping, or scowling.  Simply a daily inspecting, reflecting, and selecting.  It’s really simple.

Why Celebrate the Day?

This spurs from a few recent moments I’ve had.  Days of two extremes: one of my worst days in my life and a really great day that involved a random faceless stranger buying my groceries.  It’s a fairy tale I’ve only heard about but came true for me.  Truly, a happily ever after.

But as I reflected on my fairy tale ending I thought about how every day has its little gifts: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I wondered how many I had overlooked because I wasn’t paying attention.

I can’t get it out of my head.  How many blessings have I missed?  How many mediocre days were just that: mediocre or hum drum.  I wanted to see the best in every day.

So… I’m dragging all of you into this daily journaling of celebrating every day.  2015 will be a year of blessings.  And a year with a little more perk.  Because when we recognize our reasons to celebrate it creates our happy endings.

There is good all around.

Celebrate the Day Statement: 6 Simple Rules:

Now, you non-journal writers, don’t run yet.  The rules are  simple:

1. Date it.  Always, always put the date.  You can cheat and play catch up if you want.  If you skip a day, back track.  If you skip a week, rethink.  If you skip a month, I will ask you if you’ve owned the same journal for the last decade.
2. Inspect your day.  Establish a habit.  Do your thinking at the same time every day: at bed time, at breakfast (possibly noting yesterday’s blessings), while you’re waiting to pick the kids up from school, before you open the blinds.  Whenever.  You decide.
3. Reflect.  Why is it a blessing to you?
4. Select one thing you can celebrate.  There will be more than one reason to celebrate.  It may be throwing you a confetti of ideas. Just choose one.  Or if you’re an overachiever slap ’em all down.
5. Write one reason you celebrated today.  (One word if it makes it easier for you).
6. Repeat.  Go to sleep before you repeat.  Then, go again.  We are aiming for 365 celebrating moments.  Look for something new in a repeat blessing.  No copy cats.

Alternative Methods To The ‘Celebrate the Day Statement’:

There are several ways you can do this.  Choose the method that works best for you.

• Personal Journal.  Keep it to yourself but share your insights with your loved ones.  It will get others thinking about their blessings even if they don’t participate in your daily quest.
• Family Journal.  Include the family.  Everyone can make a statement.  You can do it daily or weekly (maybe just on Sundays, or on Family Nights).  Incorporate it to meet your family needs but keep it consistent (remember rule #2).  Remember to be lenient with young children and it’s okay if they repeat blessings.
• Weekly Journal.  Instead of writing every day you can change it to your highlighted moments of the week.  Record on the same day every week.

Celebrate

Ok, I’ll stop bugging you.  Get on with your day.  I’m excited to see what awaits me.  So, I’m off.  Have a fantastic day.  And if, by chance, it’s not… see the good that you can.  It’s there, you just have to find it.

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